Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.
Nocton, Lincolnshire,
Monday evening, December 13, 1826.
Bless your foolish heart! No, child, there is nothing the matter—never was anything worth mentioning. We have ruralized some time in this rustic Bedlam, and some of us got loose on Wednesday; but we are all caught and shut up again, and there is no harm done except 250 guineas gone and spent in post-horses, and we are all thin and exhausted with anxiety and shame, some for themselves, and some for others. I believe I sent you, at the time of Clarke’s[238] last visit, my farce of the new “Mayor of Garratt,” with the plot made out into scenes, and specimens of the dialogue; but a good five-act comedy has written itself since Wednesday. Sarah is willing to laugh at it all herself now, and does so, I hear;—and after all, poor thing, it is no wonder she is nervous about health just now. All her fears I can excuse, with the death of her child from mismanagement constantly weighing on her mind; and the folly she is betrayed into, her fear is responsible for; but as she knows that her mind is beyond her own control, the provoking thing is that from the moment she begins to be ungovernable, she refuses to see anybody except servants who cannot contradict her.
As long as Mr. Robinson is forthcoming that does not signify, as to a certain degree he prevents her doing anything outrageously foolish; but he was took with a bad headache on Wednesday, such as he often has, a regular case of Calomel and black dose which the Lincoln doctors prescribed, and said he would be better the next day. But in the meanwhile Sarah worked herself into such a state that she sent off at eight in the morning two expresses, one for Clarke who lives in Norfolk, and another for Henry Ellis, Doctor Warren, West, and I fancy any others of the profession who chose to come. She would not see Sister, or rather speak to her; for Sister once went into her room and found her (who has not had her feet to the ground since I was here) walking about like anybody else, and actually running into the library to write her letters.
Poor dear Mr. Robinson got quite well as the day went on and the dose went off, and then Sarah began to be frightened at what she had done; and then she saw Sister and was content to be advised, and a third messenger was sent off to stop all the doctors he could find on the road. He turned back Warren in his chaise and four at Biggleswade; and West in his chaise and four, a few miles beyond. Before the express came back, we were living in the pleasing expectation of going in to dinner,—Sister, Anne,[239] Mary, and I—each arm in arm with a doctor—Clarke, Warren, West, and Swan—the Lincoln man. I wanted to make a pleasant evening of it, as there was not much sickness about, and after dancing a quadrille with them that we should take a little senna tea, and then have a good jolly game at Snap-dragon with some real Epsom Salts.
I forgot to mention that Sarah, with fatigue and worry, had made herself so ill that a fourth express went on Thursday to fetch Clarke again. She makes all these people travel in chaises and four par parenthèse; Clarke came on Saturday night, and then it was to be broke to that dear good gull Mr. Robinson that any doctor whatever had been sent for. I had no idea before that she could have been enough afraid of him to have kept anything from him; but he even read that paragraph in the paper about himself and wondered what the mistake could be.
However, Sister, as usual, was persuaded to take a great deal of the scrape on her shoulders, and Clarke, who seems clever enough, undertook to announce and explain the rest. Mr. R. was, I heard, horribly annoyed at first, but is resigned now, and it is all smothered up in her dressing-room where she has shut him up, and I do not know when he will be allowed to call himself well again.
I hear she is very low now the excitement is over, but wisely declares she shall do just the same next time, and he begs he may go as his own express. Poor man! he has a bad prospect before him, but I do not think that he minds it.
She professes the degree of religious feeling that is seldom met with, and which appears to me inconsistent with any worldly feelings whatever, above all with her feelings for self. The quantity of her religion it is impossible to deny, but I doubt its quality being right; and when I see that her high-flown mystical ideas end in making everybody round her perfectly miserable, I go back to the suspicions I have entertained for some time that the old simple religion we were taught at four years old out of Watt’s catechism is the real right thing after all. “If you are good, you will go to Heaven, and if you are naughty, etc., etc.” You ought to know your Watt’s catechism. I shall learn mine over again, and begin quite fresh in the most practical manner.
Oh, by the bye, and another thing I have found out and meant to tell you is, that Virtue is not its own reward. It may be anybody’s else, but it is not its own. I take the liberty of asserting that my conduct here has been perfectly exemplary. I never behaved well before in my life, and I can safely add I never passed so unpleasant a month.